A JOURNEY BY JUNGLE RIVERS
MANAOS WATER-FRONT DWELLERS HAVE COPIED FLOATING DOCKS
Two giant logs serve in lieu of steel pontoons under this river home. The natives like the idea used
by the British (see illustration, page 595) and adapt it to their own needs.
During midday hours the Negro's un
rippled surface emits a glare that is both
intense light and heat; and to one traveling
in midstream, remote from the picturesque
features of its banks, the broad river some
times becomes as monotonous as a fog and
assumes much the same unreality. Where
the bow wave breaks, the water is like clear
coffee, but when one gazes out at a natural
angle the smooth surface of this vast mir
ror presents a barely perceptible difference
from the sky, which it reflects in minutest
detail.
Where the Cauabury makes its contribu
tion to the Negro, the island of Jerusalem
lifts smooth skirts of granite high above the
swirling waters. From its summit, shorn
of its crown of forest to make room for a
big hut of thatch, the rugged peaks of the
Cordilheira (Cordillera) can be seen pierc
ing the horizontal haze far to the north
in another hemisphere, in fact, for the
Equator passes between.
Those peaks were the goal toward which
our expedition was venturing; for some
where among them was a roaring cataract,
the Salto do Hua, where the Maturaca
rushes through a granite trough to form a
natural marker on the Brazil-Venezuela
line, and it was there the season's work
was to begin. Getting there was purely
incidental (see illustration, page 619, and
map, page 589).
It was planned to ascend the Cauabury
to the Maturaca, then work our way up the
latter to the Salto; so Jerusalem was chosen
as a base. The native family accommo
datingly relinquished their big hut for the
storage of our extra supplies, and a radio
outfit was set up to maintain communica
tion between the Commissioners on the
remote and otherwise isolated frontier and
their headquarters in Manaos (see page
591).
Moored beside a broad expanse of bare
rock, we found the heat unusually intense.
Agostini stripped to the waist while skin
ning birds, and when I happened along I
was horrified to see his back black with
blood-sucking gnats the natives call piums,
a species of Simulium related to the black
fly of the North woods. I marveled at
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